Flick a switch to chill out

Be­fore you in­stall an air­con sys­tem at home, it’s wise to first con­sider a few fac­tors

With to­day be­ing the start of sum­mer, and with much warmer weather ahead, air­con­di­tion­ing in­stal­la­tion is front of mind for many home­own­ers.

But be­fore you do, Mit­subishi Elec­tric na­tional prod­uct man­ager Atesh Mani has some tips to help you.

His ad­vice when de­cid­ing where to place your new split-sys­tem is for­get about cool­ing the whole house and in­stead po­si­tion them where the most time is spent.

“De­pend­ing on your life­style, this could be any­where from the liv­ing room to the kitchen, with the bed­room be­ing a pop­u­lar choice for a cool and peace­ful night’s sleep,” Mr Mani said.

“The air­con­di­tioner should ideally sit in a shaded area of the se­lected room, such as in a cor­ner that re­ceives lit­tle sun­light and is away from other de­vices.”

He said one of the sim­plest ways to save was to re­mem­ber to close the door.

“Air­con­di­tion­ers work most ef­fi­ciently when in closed spa­ces, so it’s best to po­si­tion your de­vice far away from the front door and away from win­dows where sun­light reg­u­larly en­ters,” he said.

“This will en­sure that the cool air con­tin­ues to cir­cu­late through­out the house with­out un­con­trolled amounts of heat en­ter­ing.”

As well as sav­ing money, save dis­putes with your neigh­bours, as Mr Mani warns some air­con­di­tion­ers can be quite noisy.

“This can be dis­pleas­ing for neigh­bours liv­ing in close prox­im­ity,” he said. “Air­con­di­tion­ers will al­ways gen­er­ate a lit­tle bit of noise, as es­sen­tially they are ma­chines with many in­ter­nal com­po­nents.”